When Blizzard released Warcraft III patch 1.27a earlier this month, it turns out that they had forgotten to include the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable package when patching from earlier versions. This is the cause of why some may be receiving the error about MSVCR120.dll when launching the game.

Fortunately, Blizzard posted to their forums detailing how to fix the issue.

If you get this error after patching to 1.27a then you have a few options:

Blizzard made an announcement on March 14, 2016 that they've not only updated Diablo II but now they've also updated Warcraft III! The new patch is labeled 1.27a and includes new hashes, a new version byte 0x1B, and some bugfixes just as there were to Diablo II.

Today we will be deploying 1.27a for Warcraft III. As with Diablo II, this patch focuses on modern system compatibility. It’s exciting to bring some additional support to another core Blizzard game, and we thank you for your encouragement and patience as we continue working behind the scenes on these types of updates.

Please be aware that while we are working on a balance change and new map pool, that work is still in progress and is not part of this patch. We’ll have further details on that as development progresses.

And here are the patch notes:

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WARCRAFT III: THE FROZEN THRONE VERSION HISTORY
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Patch 1.27
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Specific Changes & Improvements
- Throw away that old PowerPC Mac in the closet, we’ve created a new installer to support Mac 10.10 and 10.11
- Improved compatibility with Windows 7, 8.1, and 10
- Fixed a crash caused by Chain Lightning
Known Issues
- Windows 8.1 and 10 saved games are still stored in a location that requires running as system admin
- Some graphical issues with the cinematics are still occurring
- Changes to gamma settings will not take effect in windowed mode
- Cyrillic characters are still not displaying
- Disabled ambient sound while a MIDI issue is being resolved
- Mac 10.9 and earlier are not supported
- Mac build does not support the editor

With this in mind plus the update for Diablo II from just a few days earlier, it begs the question to be asked: Is there an update coming for Starcraft? Stay tuned to BNETDocs to find out!

Hey all, I figured it might be time to remind everyone why BNETDocs is in read-only mode, and how to continue serving the community you love.

Earlier in 2014 when I inherited BNETDocs from Kyro, it was given to me with a warning that someone had used SQL injection exploits to delete data. There were holes in the code which allowed malicious parties to inject harmful queries to BNETDocs. Kyro turned off logins to the site after realizing what had happened. This was the state I was given it in.

After inheriting BNETDocs, I analyzed the access logs and mapped them to the code. I realized there were many holes in the code that couldn't easily be fixed in the small time I have to this project. I put the entire site into read-only mode (the SQL user itself can't insert, alter, or delete). This was to safeguard the data from being deleted or tampered with until the holes could be fixed. Move on a couple years later to the present year: 2016, and these holes are still present. I've patched the ones that alert over on New Relic, but I can still see access logs that indicate users trying to break in to specific parts of BNETDocs.

BNETDocs Redux has a lot of unmanageable code that needs to be brought up to date with current technology. It is architecturally a bad design under the hood as well, so bringing it to the future is no trivial task. It is this reason that as the owner of BNETDocs, I decided an entire rewrite of BNETDocs was in order. This is where BNETDocs Phoenix comes in. However, like I mentioned above, I have little time to dedicate to BNETDocs. I've been tremendously busy as of late, and haven't put in the work I'd like to for BNETDocs Phoenix.

Now here comes the fun part. All of Redux and Phoenix are on GitHub, open-sourced so everyone can contribute. Not only that, but any email sent to the BNETDocs domain will arrive to my inbox, so if there's any questions or concerns, I'd love to hear them. If you have something to contribute to the BNETDocs documentation, shoot me an email or message me on IRC, or any other means you have to contact me, and I'll personally update the database that BNETDocs reads from myself. Hell, even creating an issue on the BNETDocs/bnetdocs-web repository will work.

With all of the above out of the way, I have no plans to ever take Redux out of read-only mode, sorry to anyone who had their hopes up. I want all effort to be dedicated to the new BNETDocs Phoenix site. I consider the Redux flavor to be archived code and only reasonable patches to it will be considered.

Blizzard made an announcement on March 12, 2016 that they've finally come back and updated Diablo II after all this time. The new patch is labeled 1.14a and includes new hashes, a new version byte 0x0E, and of course bugfixes for the actual game.

It’s been a long time coming, but today we’re releasing 1.14a for Diablo II.

This update focuses on system glitches introduced by modern operating systems. In related news, you can finally retire those old Mac PowerPCs. Included with the update is a shiny new installer for OSX.

We’ve also begun working to improve our cheat-detection and hack-prevention capabilities. There’s still work to be done, but we’re making improvements every day.

There is still a large Diablo II community around the world, and we thank you for continuing to play and slay with us. This journey starts by making Diablo II run on modern platforms, but it does not end there. See you in Sanctuary, adventurers.

And here are the patch notes:

Diablo II v1.14a Patch Notes
Specific Changes & Improvements
- No need to run in XP mode anymore, Windows 7, 8.1, and 10 compatibility complete
- Mac installer and compatibility for 10.10 and 10.11 has arrived
- First client run will migrate saved characters to avoid issues from Windows system
admin changes
Known Issues
- Mac 10.9 and earlier are not supported

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